Jeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeez, why do I feel skeptical?

Gotta’ love the General.

Bunter

Thats a joke right? People up north with colder climates usually like to drive to work with heat rather than be cold. And people in the south, you know where it gets hot like A/C to cool off a 120 deg interior during the summer. And radio gives them something to listen to since this thing wont even have an engine sound. If the car doesn’t have features people have come to expect in cars they wont buy it they will buy something else, like a Prius that has those features AND gets good mileage.

They’ll make sure the car goes when you push the pedal on the right.

If it goes anything like my Cadillac it will buck and resist, turn off at lights, die on onramps and leave you stranded on family vacations. And that’s with a V8, can’t wait to try out this all new cost cut powerplant.

And I’m betting that a 2nd generation Prius might stack up pretty well against the 1st gen Volt, assuming GM ever sells the first one.

At some point, my guess is after Honda and Toyota announce their next-gen hybrids, and maybe even plug-ins, I expect GM to quietly fold their plug-in tent while mumbling some excuses. They don’t compete in the small hybrid market at all, and their idea of a competitor to the Civic is the Cobalt. Why should we expect them to deliver with the Volt?

To wit:

“In gasoline-powered vehicles, windshield wiper motors are powered directly off the engine.”
Hilarious. With a driveshaft? In reality the battery power the wipers when the car is stopped, and when running the engine indirectly powers the wipers via the generator with the battery acting as a filter and storage medium.

“Audio systems have become enormous power hogs in recent years, with consumers demanding seven or nine-speaker sound in their cars, powered by 200-watt and even 500-watt amplifiers”.

So put in a modest OEM type 40W system. Use a class-D amplifier that is 90%+ efficient. All technology available today. This ain’t gonna be a vehicle that can support 500W audio systems. Even an idiot should be able to understand that basic premise.

Technical people really shouldn’t talk to reporters. They screw it up every single time.

So to the author – Let GM sweat the electronic details. They’ll make sure the car goes when you push the pedal on the right.

If one is buying an advanced-technology vehicle to avoid CO2 emissions, why would anyone want this very marginal improvement over the $22K Prius when buying the Prius leaves one with $13K towards solar panels or a windmill?

How big is the first Volt run going to be? They could easily stay within a healthy early-adopter envelope, even if the windshield wipers and radio are too taxing.

Remember, people line up to buy hybrids at tremendous premiums relative to their gas savings.

Hey, this is the company that spent millions making the Astra US-ready but couldn’t figure out how to program a clock to read out in North American standard time!

And They also couldn’t retrofit a cup holder into the darn thing.

They also couldn’t bring a decent, Euro-spec drivetrain to the table (the Astra’s drivetrain is identical to that in the base Cobalt, correct?).

The Astra’s native market (Germany) is even a LHD market.

What did they spend millions on, again?

Good question. And Bob Lutz has said it could be as high as $40k when it finally appears.

$35k-is that with or without the battery?

what shortcuts are they taking in mission critical primary systems?

I’m sure the beta testers I mean first customers will get to fine that out once it rolls out in 2011 or 12 or 13.

Or GM will keep announcing surprises like this and their “fixes” and in the end they will sell a $75,000 over glorified hybrid (Malibu).

A realistic deadline would keep them from looking stupid like this and they could actually address all the problems and come out with a great car.